Modified health code would legalize abortion in cases of rape in Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 3, 2009 / 04:41 pm (CNA).- The media in Mexico reported this week that the country’s Secretariat of Health has caved to pressure from anti-life feminist groups and has changed norms to require health care facilities throughout Mexico to administer “emergency contraception” and even provide abortion for women in cases of rape.

In July of last year, the Secretariat modified Mexican Official Norm 046, which deals with domestic violence, sexual assault and violence against women, to say that health institutions “shall” provide the morning-after pill. Then in January of 2009, the secretariat changed the wording from “shall” to “may.”

Giving in to fierce protests from feminist and anti-life organizations, the Secretariat has changed the language back to how it was originally written, which in practice legalized abortion in cases of rape.